Contents

Biography

Matthew Craig Steenberg was born in 1978 on the American Naval Base in Okinawa, Japan, where he lived the first year of his life before moving to the United States. Growing up, he lived in many places both in the United States and abroad, including the city of Moscow, Idaho in the United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Belgium. At university, he majored in Classics and Religion, graduating with BA degrees in both. Afterwards, on a Marshall Scholarship, he moved to the United Kingdom, where he obtained a Masters Degree and then Doctorate in Patristic Studies and Church History from the University of Oxford. Upon completion of these degrees, he became a teaching Fellow of Religion at Oxford, a post he held until 2007, when he became Chair and Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Leeds Trinity University, a post which he held until 2010.

In September 2000, he established the website, Monachos.net, a website dedicated to "Orthodoxy through Patristics, Monastic, and Liturgical Study". As part of this site, a discussion board to keep conversation on Orthodoxy going was created.

While in Oxford, Matthew was tonsured a reader as well as serving in the capacity of choir director. In 2006, he helped found the parish of St. Nicholas Church, Oxford after the already-established Orthodox parish in Oxford switched jurisdiction.

In January 2010, Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America received Deacon Matthew Steenberg into the ranks of clergy of the Western American Diocese from the Diocese of Sourozh and assigned him to the St. Tikhon of Zadonsk Church in San Francisco and as the new principal of St. John of San Francisco Orthodox Academy in San Francisco[1][2].

On March 14, 2010, Hierodeacon Irenaeus was ordained a priest at the Holy Virgin Cathedral in San Francisco by Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America.

On March 2010, he became a Visiting Professor in Orthodox Christian Studies, Santa Clara University.

Since 2011, he was the Dean and Founder of the Sts Cyril & Athanasius Institute for Orthodox Studies, San Francisco.

On August 26, 2011, at the Divine Liturgy for the patronal feastday of St. Tikhon's Church in San Francisco, Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America elevated Hieromonk Irenaeus to the rank of archimandrite and lay the mitre upon his head[3].

On July 1, 2016, the Synod of Bishops of ROCOR elected Archimandrite Irenaeus (Steenberg) to be the Bishop of Sacramento and Vicar of the Western American Diocese. This election was submitted to Patriarch Kyrill, and it was subsequently confirmed by the Holy Synod of the Church of Russia on July 15[4]. The consecration took place on November 7, 2016, and was officiated by Archbishop Kyril of San Francisco, along with Archbishop Peter of Chicago, Bishop Theodosius of Seattle, and Bishop John of Naro-Fominsk.[5].

‘Gnomic will and a challenge to the true humanity of Christ in Maximus Confessor’, Studia Patristica 42 (2006) 237-242.

‘Self and the Church: A review of E. Moore’s “Defining Orthodoxy: Is it Possible?”’, Theandros: An Online Journal of Orthodox Christian Theology and Philosophy <www.theandros.com> 1/1 (September 2003).

‘Rediscovering Old Testament Christianity’, Again 23.3 (2001) 4-11.

Introductory Studies

A World Full of Arians

Epinoia & Ennoia: The Cappadocian Fathers on essence/energy and the human knowledge of God

Modelling the Trinity after the man: Human nature and the Trinity in the Cappadocian Epistle 38